PCI-Express SSDs review: 8 models compared

We're finally moving on from Serial ATA 600!

By Koen CrijnsThursday 14 January 2016 08:00

Introduction

The first generation of native PCI-Express SSDs arrived on the market this year, albeit a little later than expected. At any rate, some of these SSDs seem to live up to the promise of providing a faster interface. We tested SSDs by Plextor, Kingston, Samsung and Intel, comparing them to each other and to the fastest SATA600 SSDs.

In an article which we published in late 2014, we predicted that 2015 would be the year of the PCI-Express SSD. Even though it took a little longer than we hoped it would, the first native PCI-Express SSDs for consumer PCs are now commercially available. Although some are barely faster than conventional Serial ATA 600 SSDs, others easily surpassed a good number of benchmark records. It's time to weigh these new gen SSDs up against each other: which PCI-Express SSDs are worth paying for? Or is it too early to switch to a new gen SSD altogether? We're also going to look at the kind of computer you'd need to use one of these modern SSDs.